Photographic silver halide materials are generally exposed imagewisely, developed, fixed, washed with water, and then dried, thereby the photographic image is finally observed.
The processing composition used in these process are provided as concentrated solution kits, thereafter these kits are diluted when practically used as working solutions. The concentrated solution kits have an advantage from the viewpoint of excellent solubility, moreover, since there can be wide range of selection of agents including liquid state raw materials, thereby the concentrated solution kits are prepared at less burden in manufacturing processes and at low manufacturing cost.
However, the concentrated solution kits have some dangerous problem such as a contact with skin. Especially the problem becomes more serious when these kits penetrate into eyes. Moreover, the kits must need heavy plastic bottles to contain them. Excessive weight and large volume of processing vessels not only causes increasing transportation cost but also environmentally unacceptable problem with large amount of disposal of the waste vessels.
Accordingly, from the viewpoint of small light weight and compact, the processing composition in the kits is preferably a solid such as a powder form, a granule form, and a tablet form.
However, as mentioned above, compared with a liquid form, a solid form has a big problem in manufacturing cost because it must be passed through various processes, namely, process of measuring raw materials, mixing process, pulverizing process, granulating process, drying process, and dressing process, furthermore, in the case of a tablet form, compressed tableting process is included.
Accordingly, to supply the solid form to the market at similar price to that of the liquid form, there exists the subject that attains to lower the manufacturing cost of the solid form. On the other hand, there is a problem of the deterioration of the properties of the solid processing composition, such as the occurrence of dust, the lowering of it's stability, and the lowering of it's solubility.